Unbroken Chains, by Martin Plaut, is a groundbreaking new history that illuminates the full story of slavery in Africa, from Ancient Egypt to the present.
Description
Slavery has torn apart African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Yet most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Historians and commentators long neglected the equally sizeable, far more protracted phenomenon of Indian Ocean slavery, and all but passed over Africa’s internal practices—from Ethiopian kingdoms enslaving conquered peoples, to the Sokoto Caliphate capturing non-Muslims on a scale matching that of the US plantations.
Over the last five thousands years some 50 million Africans have been enslaved: some taken as far as India and China, others held in captivity in Africa itself.
These overlooked stories of enslavement matter. In 1794, Congress authorised construction of the US Navy’s first six ships—in response to civilian vessels being seized by North Africa’s Barbary corsairs, who raided as far as Britain and the Caribbean, enslaving over one million Europeans. And, since abolition of the trans-Atlantic trade, international concern has moved from traditional to ‘modern’ forms of slavery, leaving hundreds of thousands of Africans enslaved in Africa as today with few champions abroad. The African Union and Arab League are too embarrassed to confront the African leaders still permitting this practice.
Unbroken Chains offers readers a full, accessible history of the myriad bondage systems that have devastated African communities over the millennia. It is a haunting, sensitive, powerful read.
About Martin Plaut
Martin Plaut, the BBC World Service’s former Africa Editor, has published extensively on African affairs. An adviser to the Foreign Office and the US State Department, he is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
Visit Martin’s website for recent articles and insights.
Preorder the book
Publication date: 28 August 2025
ISBN 9781805264026
£25 Hardback
You can preorder the book now.
For review copies and publicity enquiries, please contact Raminta Uselyte (raminta@hurstpub.co.uk) at Hurst Publishers.